Looped

by Andrew Winston

A remarkably assured and accomplished debut novel that encompasses the bursting life of contemporary Chicago, Looped tells the separate stories of a diverse group of Chicagoans—black, brown, and white, gay, straight, and bi—as their lives unfold in diverging and (occasionally) converging ways over the course of the year 2000. Among the characters are the family of a middle-class black postman whose runaway daughter has just learned she’s pregnant; a gifted half-Vietnamese high-schooler whose troubled father spies on the son he abandoned years earlier; a tradition-bound Greek diner owner whose upwardly mobile daughter, embarrassed by her ethnic roots, is snarled in a loveless marriage; a gay chef whose shaky relationship is strained by the visit of his closeted lover’s uncle, a Catholic priest; and the motley members of an up-and-coming band shaken by the breakup of its ambitious lead guitarist and his sexually confused songwriter girlfriend. Ambitious, sprawling, engrossing, multifaceted, insightful, and addictively readable, Looped explodes with a life and vitality that mirrors the multicultural reality of twenty-first century Chicago, where the families that sustain us are more likely to be those we’ve created than those we’re born to.

Genres: Fiction

409 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2005

Reviews

[Corina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is excellent. I just finished it a little while ago and am sitting here thinking about the characters, still. It is set in Chicago in the year 2000 and follows a diverse group of people (ethnically, socially, financially, age, sexual orientation) from January 1 to December 31. At the beginning it is a little bit difficult in that there are so many characters introduced all at once and out introductions to them are sometimes no more than a short paragraph. However, that changes very quickly as we are pulled into the lives of the characters and how they interact with each other. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent!

[Ola · Rating 4 out of 5]

Looped chronicles the year 2000, and the lives of several individuals from diverse backgrounds. White, Black, Asian, lesbian, gay, rich, middle-class, old, young...each person faces a separate dilemma in life.

Andrew Winston does a masterful job of intertwining the lives of each of these people. This is not your typical more-than-one-point-of-view narrative. Looped is really a book worth checking out.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the only book that I've read in my lifetime that actually warranted written praise to the author. At first I was overwhelmed with how many different plots are introduced rather quickly, and I wondered how on earth these would all piece together. By the end of the book, I was so impressed with the writing, I couldn't stop raving about it.

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! I absolutely adored this book. The description caught my eye originally because it made it seem as though the whole book took place in Rogers Park. While initially I was surprised and rather disappointed that this was not the case, I got swept up in the rich and beautifully written story. With its myriad of characters - from old to young, many different races, sexualities and religions, the true main character is Chicago itself. And the author completely captured it - it was more than just mentioning places, he managed to capture a sense of home within this book. I loved it. Following the timeline of just one year, was great but I did not want it to end. I can't wait to read anything else he has written - though I think this will be a tough act to out-do.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Follows the year 2000 for a group of somewhat interconnected Chicagoans. Movie-maker Ellen breaks up with Megan to date singer Alice; Nathan and moody Robin fight and fight as Nathan's priest uncle visits; Florence gets over her dead husband and learns to paint; Alphie loses his job as a mail carrier but finds his pregnant daughter Giselle and helps his son avoid gang life. Artist Ng falls in love with Leda while his mom Soo works for diner owner Elais.

This is the first novel by Winson; it wasn't flawless, but I'd be interested in seeing how much better his next novel is.

[Rhiannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very confusing. The story of lives of different Chicagoans from different backgrounds.